A Fun and Informative Blog about Crochet; complete with Tips, How-To's, and Free Patterns.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Serious Stuff Here

This is about writing patterns. When you create a pattern, and put it down in writing, you are automatically granted the copyright to that piece of work. You can pay the government money to make sure you have your rights covered in case someone steals your work and puts their name on it. It happens. But, you are granted those rights for free by your government. You pay the government to make sure there is no question that you are the legal owner of that copright. Not paying, leaves you trusting people not to rip you off. Think of it as insurance, and decide for yourself if its worth the money. OK?

Now then, if you sell your pattern to a publisher such as a magazine or website, generally you sell the rights along with that. That means you cannot go and sell that pattern to any one else. You no longer own the rights to do that, you see. You sold them along with the pattern. If you don't want that to be the case, then make sure its in the contract exactly how you want it. But most likely, they will buy all rights along with the pattern. Period. But, they give you a fair price in exchange for that. If you don't agree, you can refuse to sign the contract and the pattern along with the rights remains yours and yours alone.

When you see that you are going to be making lots of patterns, you can make someone the beneficiary of all your copyrighted works upon your death. Lets face it, we all go sooner or later. You may as well give these rights to someone you know so that they can make money on your labors of love when you are no longer able to be here on earth. Put it in your Will who gets the copyrights. If the person that gets them knows anything at all about how to sell your patterns after you are gone, then they can make money for years off them. If they don't know how, and don't learn how, then its like throwing money out the window. Make sure you will them to the right person and your legacy will live on and they will be glad you chose them as the heir to your copyrights.